Look, I'm all for hoping for the best, and in my defense, I will say this...Asante goes out, the rookies step up. Roddy isn't 100% and H D steps up. Our defense looks better if not the same as what we had last year...And even in the case of SJx or Tony, if we lost them for a couple games, and still had Ryan: I believe guys like Ewing, Snelling, Rodgers and A Smith could be asked to step up and fill that role..We have our most pressing depth needs at OL and QB.

But if we lose Matt Ryan for a game or two, were pretty much f*cked. And....I am predicting this will happen this season, and were going to end up looking alot more like 9-7 or even 8-8.

Here's why: I dont see a 'solution' to the problems we have protecting Matt. We cant run max protect with what we have in the kitchen. We had glaring issues on both sides of the OL yesterday. One of the sacks was because my hero whiffed on blocking. We all 'know' Tony G is not/does not want to 'put it out there' in that respect. So that's not going to get better. But thats the price you pay for a guy with his talent. But he shouldn't be asked to stay in and protect Matt Ryan, it aint gonna happen, and more likely will get BOTH of them injured. That play shouldn't even be in the book.

I dont think running the ball more will work, and Im on the fence that perhaps if we changed the playbook and get the ball out there faster, that may help, but Im skeptical.

Now before anyone jumps on me ( cough cough* Pudge and Emmit * cough cough) and declares Im only saying this because of one game ( or the preseason, whatever ) that's not really the case...It is part of it, but to be honest ( and I hope I am dead wrong, and y'all are bringing this post up forever in the future to mock me ), I just have this wierd bad feeling that since we have been riding so high since Matt Ryan got here, coupled with the new 100$ contract, it just makes sense that of course, THIS year, where were gambling it all to grab the brass ring, Ryan will get knocked out. It could happen when he is scrambling, or when the OL breaks down..BUt I just 'feel' like its going to happen at some point this year..

It's like this: you even notice driving your car that there is some wierd noise, and you know something could be wrong, but you still drive it around hoping it will get you where you need to go? Just a little bit longer, baby..And then when it finally blows up, and your sitting on the side of the road, you always go 'well, damn. I guess I should have taken it in to the shop awhile back'.

If I am TD, I am dumping Doege and getting someone ( Pudge like Carr or V Young) at #2 immediately. If not, then TD and Smitty are tempting fate too much.

Yeah, I saw that one. I had thought that this one would draw a flag. I thought that it was illegal to slam a QB to the ground.

If I'm TD, I'm not going after a backup QB. I'm trading the farm to get a tackle in here who can protect my 100 million dollar QB. We are Superbowl or bust this year. If our offense can only put up 17 points because the QB doesn't have enough time to take 5 steps, we're not going to the Superbowl. Both of our tackles are bad this year. If we can get one GOOD tackle, Matt might have some time to do his job.

Who can we trade?

We have two rookie corners who look fantastic. Trade one of them for a top notch tackle. That leaves Rookie, Samuel, and McClain as the CBs. Not a horrible situation. And guess what, the secondary isn't going to decide whether or not we go to the Superbowl... Matt Ryan is, assuming we can keep him upright.

Harry Douglas has kicked it into another gear. There are plenty of teams who need a decent WR and who might have a backup who is a legitimate starting tackle. Trade Harry for that guy. We have a couple of young WRs who can fill in for Harry.

We are absolutely loaded at RB. Rodgers should have a lot of value. We have Snelling, Smith, and Vaughn behind him.

The big question is this, "how long do you think we can keep a pro-bowl cast around a 100 million dollar QB? Time is running out for the Falcons. We need to make a move to fix this year's team. We can't wait for the draft next year to fix our problems. I don't think that Holmes is going to turn it around. When I hear delusional quotes coming from a player, I have significant doubts that he will do anything to correct the problem.

And I'll say this again, IT WAS A VERY, VERY DEPLETED SAINTS DEFENSE. No Will Smith, no Vilma, and coming off the worst showing by ANY defense in history last year and they were killing our O Line. At one point, after that sliding hit, and with Payton back, I really wondered if a bounty had once again been issued, because after the body slam it sure looked like it...

_________________"I am certainly not afraid to have Brian Finneran on the field. Has he ever not made plays? He just makes plays. He is one of those guys that just makes plays. He is dependable."

The big question is this, "how long do you think we can keep a pro-bowl cast around a 100 million dollar QB? Time is running out for the Falcons. We need to make a move to fix this year's team. We can't wait for the draft next year to fix our problems. I don't think that Holmes is going to turn it around. When I hear delusional quotes coming from a player, I have significant doubts that he will do anything to correct the problem.

I for one would dangle draft picks in front of the Jags for Monroe, the Chiefs for Albert (although I'd imagine they are more focused on winning now), or any other good+ tackle in the league.

I'd rather give up picks than either Alford or Trufant. We KNOW we hit big on them.

Do the math, and over the 18 games played last year, Matt Ryan was sacked 29 times and hit 89 times. None of them put him out of commission.

The very next hit he takes could put him out of commission. Or he could take another 400 and not go down at all. It's an unknown. He could be driving to practice one day and get into a car accident. He could be cutting carrots while making a salad for his wife on at lunch and slice his index finger off. Or someone could break into his house and shoot him like someone did to Sean Taylor. Or on a slick field during practice Osi could stumble into his leg and tear 3 ligaments in his knee.

The point I'm trying to make is that you are welcome to having your bad feelings. I can't control any of these things, any more than you can. If you want to spend your minutes, hours, and days worrying about these things, then so be it. Who am I to say what things should be happening in your head. If you throw a party and your friend has had a few but swears he sobered up in order to drive home, and he doesn't call you the minute he arrives at home, do you spend the rest of the night worrying about whether he made it home safe?

The only thing worrying does is put an ulcer in my stomach. That ulcer doesn't help and hurt whether my friend makes it home or not, or whether Matt Ryan stays healthy for an entire season.

RobertAP wrote:

Harry Douglas has kicked it into another gear.

Harry Douglas is the same player he's always been. He kicked it into another gear because Roddy White was out of comission. Whenever Julio has been hurt, Douglas has shown up.

RobertAP wrote:

There are plenty of teams who need a decent WR and who might have a backup who is a legitimate starting tackle. Trade Harry for that guy. We have a couple of young WRs who can fill in for Harry.

* Note that Svitek and Diehl are both currently injured. Not sure when they are supposed to be back to 100%

Find me a "legit" guy in that group that is less of a gamble than Holmes, and you might be able to finangle a trade.

RobertAP wrote:

Rodgers should have a lot of value.

You mean an undersized 3rd down back that has a career YPC of 3.7? Yep, he has plenty of value. People will be breaking down the Falcons door to get him. People will certainly trade a young up and coming player at a premium position for a career backup at one of the most devalued positions on the field.

Do the math, and over the 18 games played last year, Matt Ryan was sacked 29 times and hit 89 times. None of them put him out of commission.

The very next hit he takes could put him out of commission. Or he could take another 400 and not go down at all. It's an unknown. He could be driving to practice one day and get into a car accident. He could be cutting carrots while making a salad for his wife on at lunch and slice his index finger off. Or someone could break into his house and shoot him like someone did to Sean Taylor. Or on a slick field during practice Osi could stumble into his leg and tear 3 ligaments in his knee.

The point I'm trying to make is that you are welcome to having your bad feelings. I can't control any of these things, any more than you can. If you want to spend your minutes, hours, and days worrying about these things, then so be it. Who am I to say what things should be happening in your head. If you throw a party and your friend has had a few but swears he sobered up in order to drive home, and he doesn't call you the minute he arrives at home, do you spend the rest of the night worrying about whether he made it home safe?

The only thing worrying does is put an ulcer in my stomach. That ulcer doesn't help and hurt whether my friend makes it home or not, or whether Matt Ryan stays healthy for an entire season..

Well, I would counter that Ryan was 'out of commission' after taking that shoulder hit in the last game of the season last year..Had that occured in the Seahawks game, we would be having a whole different discussion about TD and Smitty and the OL right now....

I would also point out that, yes, 'freak accidents' can happen at anytime: but after 5 years, if I see Ryan going off the field, it could be because someone stepping on his foot, or he gets turf toe, etc..but Im most likely going to see that happening because he was injured because our OL is worse this year then last year...

..sacked 29 times and hit 89 times if you just look 'at the numbers' isn't a compelling argument to 'not worry' about our newly minted, franchise QB going out with injury..To use your analogy, suppose you have a friend that comes to your parties year after year, and sometimes ties on a little buzz...but then one time, he gets absolutely smashed. kneewalking sh*tfaced. This time he drives home like all the other times. You not going to worry? Of course you are...

Well, that's where I am at. Im seeing the OL after preseason and in our first outing get manhandled by a 'less then stellar' 'Aints defense. This does not fill me with 'confidence'.

Plus, it says nothing of the effect of happy feet: as tough as Ryan is both mentally and physically, if he takes enough shots early, it does rattle him ( like any other QB)..

The other shoe to drop is something I pointed out earlier...You like to speak of 'complacency', but IMO this goes beyond that all the way to 'arrogant'. If TD and Smitty think so highly of guys like Holmes and Dominique Davis that they would overlook the obvious, then IMO they are 'tempting fate'. If Matt Ryan goes down for 2 games, and we have to rely on D Davis to carry us, were screwed. And you top that off with this being the first in a huge contract year, well that just screams 'BOHICA' . Call it my 'spidey sense'...

Now maybe your right Pudge, that somehow this line will gel and find a way to keep Ryan upright. Im hoping that will be the case. But, hope in one hand......

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It probably is, but you never know. Maybe this week, the Rams sack him 4 times and hit him 10 times. And then maybe that's the total we see combined over the 4 games after that, putting it right in line with where last year's line was. Had we played the Panthers in the first game of the year and they did to use what we they did to us in Week 4, we would have been decrying our line as the worst line in the history of the NFL. But if the rest of the season had played out the same way, we would have realized that while our line was far from good, it wasn't nearly as bad in the other 15 games as it was in that 1.

fun gus wrote:

Well, I would counter that Ryan was 'out of commission' after taking that shoulder hit in the last game of the season last year..Had that occured in the Seahawks game, we would be having a whole different discussion about TD and Smitty and the OL right now....

Yep, that was the 118th time Ryan had been hit or sacked that season, and he got hurt. Last night, the first time Tony Romo got hit he got sandwiched between two defenders and injured his ribs. That was right before halftime, and he returned in the 2nd half, but that hit could have easily punctured a lung or a spleen, as has happened to guys like Roethlisberger or Bledsoe and put him out for weeks/months if not the entire year.

That's my point. It's all random. Romo had a defender hit him low later that game (Linval Joseph) and it could have easily shredded his knee and cost him the year like it did Brady 5 years ago. But it didn't. Because it's all random.

Ryan could go down this year. Or he could not. And if your prediction happens to come true it's no more predictable than knowing where a bolt of lightning will strike, where a crazed gunman is going to shoot up the next elementary school, when and where your cousin will get into a car accident, picking the correct lottery numbers, or whether or not the last hurricane of the Atlantic season is going to ravage Puerto Rico, Barbados, or Galveston. If Ryan does get injured, all you did was guess right. No different than flipping a coin and guessing correctly that it winds up heads. You showed no credible insight in correctly guessing a coin flip. You had a 50/50 shot of getting it right.

My point is these things are unknowable and random. And if you choose to worry about these things, then that is your prerogative. I'm just trying to tell you that these things are random.

Yes, I'm aware that the chances of Ryan getting hurt increase with every hit he takes. So it behooves the Falcons to limit those hits. But again, you don't know which one is going to be his number, whether it's 1, 23, 78, 118, or 297.

As for the complacency, I'll say this...

You guys know I relish any and every opportunity to poke a finger at TD and talk about how he's not doing his job to the utmost level. But the time for that is during the off-season when the opportunity is there to fix those problems. The season started yesterday. They've already made their bed, they have to lie in it. Complaining about what TD coulda/shoulda done this off-season is essentially crying over spilt milk.

That's my point. It's all random. Romo had a defender hit him low later that game (Linval Joseph) and it could have easily shredded his knee and cost him the year like it did Brady 5 years ago. But it didn't. Because it's all random.

I don't think its as random as you!! If your line is really weak then there's just more chance the Qb may get hurt. Of course no one knows which hit will do it; (thats random) but if you get sacked 40 times you were probably hit but not sacked a lot more. I think its more with the odds of how often a Qb get hits......(but lets not argue this; no one can win;) I said what I thought in preseason.

I agree that my beefs in preseason stop because they are of no use now. I hate seeing the same crap but often a different group shows up. Now Coach Smith must just do the best with what he has. Maybe expectations get lowered, but our expectations don't win games...We're not 2-7, but enjoy the season if you can.

The Super Bowl or bust crowd are not domed until we get eliminated; not after week one!!

[Ryan could go down this year. Or he could not. And if your prediction happens to come true it's no more predictable than knowing where a bolt of lightning will strike, where a crazed gunman is going to shoot up the next elementary school, when and where your cousin will get into a car accident, picking the correct lottery numbers, or whether or not the last hurricane of the Atlantic season is going to ravage Puerto Rico, Barbados, or Galveston. If Ryan does get injured, all you did was guess right. No different than flipping a coin and guessing correctly that it winds up heads. You showed no credible insight in correctly guessing a coin flip. You had a 50/50 shot of getting it right.

My point is these things are unknowable and random. And if you choose to worry about these things, then that is your prerogative. I'm just trying to tell you that these things are random.

Yes, I'm aware that the chances of Ryan getting hurt increase with every hit he takes. So it behooves the Falcons to limit those hits. But again, you don't know which one is going to be his number, whether it's 1, 23, 78, 118, or 297..

patently absurd.

So Pudge, king of the cute stats, are you really going to sit there with a straight face, and tell me that Matt Ryan behind LT: Nate SolderLG: Logan MankinsC: Ryan WendellRG: Marcus CannonRT: Sebastian Vollmer

has the same chance of getting injured, on the field, then if he plays behind:

When Ryan gets injured, some people ( like me and RAP )are going to say 'well, that's no suprise', and Pudge will then rebutt with 'it could have happened anywhere, anytime. it's all part of the random mystery that is the NFL'.

Or Pudge will be diggin this thread out in the playoffs and for the next 5 years everytime my balls shrink and I am whining because I am seeing our franchise, 100 million dollar QB get planted

This is just arguing to be arguing. It doesn't take a statistician to fathom that the more hits a QB takes the more likely he is to get hurt and the less talented his line is the more likely he is to get hit. We could get into a huge philosophical debate as to whether everything is random or predestined--is the universe indifferent or did God really want Reggie White to win the Super Bowl? Our best hope is that the line we have gets better and this is quite possible. In fact, I would say it is probable. TD has been investing in OL in recent drafts and eventually those guys have to get a shot to play. Give the Saints some credit also. Am I going to worry to the point of ulcers? Of course, not.

This is just arguing to be arguing. It doesn't take a statistician to fathom that the more hits a QB takes the more likely he is to get hurt and the less talented his line is the more likely he is to get hit. We could get into a huge philosophical debate as to whether everything is random or predestined--is the universe indifferent or did God really want Reggie White to win the Super Bowl? Our best hope is that the line we have gets better and this is quite possible. In fact, I would say it is probable. TD has been investing in OL in recent drafts and eventually those guys have to get a shot to play. Give the Saints some credit also. Am I going to worry to the point of ulcers? Of course, not.

I think everyone here is missing my point. Let me try to clarify:

if you took the OL Ryan currently is playing behind, and you put them in last year, or even next year, I am less likely to believe Matt Ryan will get knocked out. Now, this is unsupported by any 'facts', it's just a 'hunch', and I thought I explained above 'why' I have this hunch...It's because my time here in ATL and it's sports legacy/narrative since the late 1980's has psychologically conditioned me to expect wierd stuff like this...

I've just seen this too many times. We get to the Superbowl, and our own version of Tebow goes and gets a BJ from an undercover cop...The next season, Jamaal Anderson holds out, gets a huge contract: and what happens? He shreds his knee early and it's Byron Hanspard to the rescue.

Then we get Mike Vick. HIs first year, he more or less sits behind Chandler, and the second year is impressive..Then he gets injured in 2003..

We give Mike Vick a 100 million dollar contract in 2005 and in 2006 we get close, but no cigar..Then we bring in a coach who was supposed to perform a 'Chip Kelley', and what happens? He goes to jail, and the coach bails.

We have a guy who's very moniker 'Matty Ice', a tribute to his poise and control, and he fumbles the snap in a crucial moment in e playoff game. Unreal.

It's not just limited to the Falcons, either. Im reminded of the Braves last season, and the 'infield fly' f*ckup.

So maybe that helps 'splain my paranioa..Im not asking anyone to 'buy into 'it, but don't dismiss it altogether.

The weak OL is only PART of 'why' I think Ryan will get injured. The other reason is we just paid him a Kings Ransom, and it's Tony's Last Year. Of course, it makes perfect sense, in my superstitious twisted world, that the season AFTER we get 10 yards from the Superbowl we lose our QB to injury..And the thing that seals the deal, IMO, is the arrogance of the guys who not only refuse to see the possibility of this happening, they dont even try to address it by shoring up the backup slot. That's just asking for it.

But we will see, I guess...This could be a valuble learning lesson. If Im wrong, then I will know better to put my scaredypants superstitious ramblings out there next time. If Ryan goes down, I will know my instincts were more right then wrong

So Pudge, king of the cute stats, are you really going to sit there with a straight face, and tell me that Matt Ryan behind LT: Nate SolderLG: Logan MankinsC: Ryan WendellRG: Marcus CannonRT: Sebastian Vollmer

has the same chance of getting injured, on the field, then if he plays behind:

Yes, fun gus that is exactly what I'm telling you. Maybe playing behind the Patriots OL lowers the chances of Ryan getting hurt, but it's not drastic. It's like going from a 0.7% chance of getting hurt to a 0.4% chance of getting hurt.

Alex Smith played behind the best OL in the league last year, and still got a concussion. Why? Because he happened to scramble on a play and Jo-Lonn Dunbar randomly hit him in the head when Smith tried to go down to avoid the hit. Had Dunbar's helmet glanced off Smith's shoulder, he may have never lost his starting job. Or if Smith had made the effort to dive a half-second earlier to avoid the hit, maybe Dunbar wouldn't have hit him. Random.

Kenny Vaccaro could have easily injured Ryan on his late hit of him. But that woudln't have been because Ryan's line was so bad. But you say, "Oh, but it was the pressure given up by the weak line that forced Ryan to step up and try to run the ball." And you'd be wrong. Matt Ryan has had nearly 200 improvised runs in his career, and he's been hait late on a few of them, and not a single one of them resulted in him getting injured. Random

QBs take hundreds of hits over the course of a season. And the reality is taht only a very small percentage of those hits ever result in injuries. Last year, we had 20 QBs that started all 16 games, the most over the past 4 or 5 years. Usually that number is around 3 or 14. The rules protect QBs now. But every now and then you can have a QB in his followthrough have his hand glance off an opponent's helmet, and break something (see Blaine Gabbert), or whatever.

Look, we know that Maurkice Pouncey is injury prone. At face value, the news of him tearing his ACL in Week 1 is unsurprising. He's been hurt in every season he's played, but he's never missed more than 2 or 3 games due to those injuries. But the way he was injured was completely random (his teammate cut him instead of the defender on an illegal block). You couldn't say that was bound to happen, because it wasn't.

Here's a perfect illustration of how random injuries are. Just look at the 3 times Matt Ryan has been hurt in the past 5 years.

1. The first time came in 2009 vs. the Bucs. On the 9th play from scrimmage, pressure from the edge forced Ryan to step up in the pocket, but a pursuing Stylez G. White chased him down from behind and landed all of his weight on Ryan's leg, and Ryan injured his toe/foot and missed 2 games.

2. Then in 2011 vs. the Lions, Will Svitek was in his pass set and stepped on Ryan's ankle, forcing him out of the game for a play.

3. Then in 2013 vs. the 49ers, our best OL gets beat by Ahmad Brooks off the edge and he slams RYan into the dirt, injuring his shoulder. Ryan doesn't miss a snap, but had it been under any other circumstances (i.e. the Falcons season not on the line), he probably would have, if not a couple of weeks.

It's all random. Sebastian Vollmer gets beat from time to time too. And it may be the one random time that he does, that his man hits Brady at the wrong angle and puts him down.

And Cyril is right, the more you get hit the greater your odds of being injured. But for every hit, the odds go up a fraction of a percentage point.

If Matt Ryan is getting hit 100+ times in a season, then I think it's safe to say that most NFL QBs are getting hit around the same amount every year. So if there are well over 3000 hits on QBs in a given season, yet only 15-20 or them put a QB out of commission, you do the math on the odds (here's a hint, it's less than 1%) that any one of them will put a QB out of a commission.

Think of it this way...Everytime you drive in the rain, your chances of getting into a fatal car accident go up. But I'll bet good money that the rate of fatal car crashes per capita isn't much higher in the Pacific Northwest where it rains all the time as it is in Bumville, Kansas and thereabouts where it's much drier.

backnblack wrote:

it. We could get into a huge philosophical debate as to whether everything is random or predestined--is the universe indifferent or did God really want Reggie White to win the Super Bowl?

The weak OL is only PART of 'why' I think Ryan will get injured. The other reason is we just paid him a Kings Ransom, and it's Tony's Last Year. Of course, it makes perfect sense, in my superstitious twisted world, that the season AFTER we get 10 yards from the Superbowl we lose our QB to injury..And the thing that seals the deal, IMO, is the arrogance of the guys who not only refuse to see the possibility of this happening, they dont even try to address it by shoring up the backup slot. That's just asking for it.

That may very well happen. But it won't be because of some divine hand, it's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Cyril seems to be the one person who understands this more than anybody else, thanks to his wealth of experience in both life and being a Falcon/football fan. There are ups and downs. And the minute you assume anything about what's going to happen next, life (or in this case football) is going to smack you in the face. Despite my youth, perhaps the fact that I have a degree in history makes me understand this better than others.

But after the Falcons went to the NFC Championship Game last year, I realized that it could easily be 6 years before the Falcons go back.

I was telling this to Emmitt on our NFL preview podcast, but only 1 team since 1998 has been to the playoffs more than 5 years in a row: the Colts under Manning, where they did in 9 years in a row. The Packers, 49ers, and Steelers of the 90s did it for 6+ years. But Tom Brady has never been to the playoffs more than 5 years in a row. Why? Because in 2008, Bernard Pollard blew out his knee in the 1st week of the season. Otherwise there's no reason to think the Pats wouldn't be coming off their 10th consecutive playoff season rather than their 4th.

But again, that's the way the cookie crumbles. The Saints went to the NFC Championship in 2006, and then had 2 .500 seasons before getting back in '09 to win it all. The 49ers went back to back years, and thanks to a fumbled snap by Ryan instead of a fumbled punt by Kyle Williams went to the Super Bowl the 2nd time. Dallas had the best record in the NFC in 2007 at 13-3. Since then, they've missed the playoffs 4 out of 5 years. All these fates are up to the so-called Football Gods, and us mere mortals can do nothing to sway them. But a good GM should be aware of this, and try his best to mitigate these things.

Look I firmly believe that if the Falcons had Steven jackson last year instead of Michael Turner we would have been in the Super Bowl. But that was last year. And assuming that you can just put Steven Jackson on this year's team and that will propel you into the Super Bowl this year it's downright foolish.

Look, if this season does wind up "down the drain" for whatever reason, it will be for the same faults that 2011 was when the Falcons pulled this exact same thing, thinking if we had just had Ray Edwards & Julio Jones vs. the Packers, we could have gone to the Super Bowl, and then made the moves to get both players thinking that it would be the difference, and it wasn't.

Look I respect Ozzie Newsome because he blew up his Ravens team, apparently because he understood this principle better than others. Think back to the Packers a few years back. They win the title with an injury depleted roster. They think, "Oh we're getting all these injured players back and we'll be even better next year." And guess what? They were. They won 5 more games that year. But they didn't repeat as Super Bowl champs all the same.

The other example I think of is the '04 Steelers vs. the '05 Steelers. The '04 Steelers were a better team, went 15-1 thanks to it. But they lost in the conference championship game as the top seed, and the '05 team won the Super Bowl as a 6th seed, and only got in the playoffs because the Cowboys beat the Chiefs on a last minute TD drive by Drew Bledsoe in Week 14. If the Chiefs had held onto win, they would have been the 6th seed instead of the Steelers.

But that's the random nature of life and football and sport. And even if you hold the worldview that there is truly some sort of divine hand pulling the strings "behind the curtain," us mere mortals cannot go backstage nor can we comprehend the reasons behind why the "puppet show" goes in the direction it goes, so to us it is essentially random.

But that's the random nature of life and football and sport. And even if you hold the worldview that there is truly some sort of divine hand pulling the strings "behind the curtain," us mere mortals cannot go backstage nor can we comprehend the reasons behind why the "puppet show" goes in the direction it goes, so to us it is essentially random.

very well put, Pudge.

You are probably right...BUt don't you ever get the feeling that sometimes, the Football Gods come in and punish or reward teams for thier own actions? I mean The Pats were printing out 'perfect season' tee-shirts, and a guy catches a pass ON HIS HELMET to spoil that?

Sometimes I think people 'ask for it', and not just in sports, but life in general. I guess like the Pats who thought and loudly proclaimed that they were going to be the 'perfect team', that what they experienced could be considered 'Karma'. The opposite of Karma is Irony.

But that's the random nature of life and football and sport. And even if you hold the worldview that there is truly some sort of divine hand pulling the strings "behind the curtain," us mere mortals cannot go backstage nor can we comprehend the reasons behind why the "puppet show" goes in the direction it goes, so to us it is essentially random.

very well put, Pudge.

You are probably right...BUt don't you ever get the feeling that sometimes, the Football Gods come in and punish or reward teams for thier own actions? I mean The Pats were printing out 'perfect season' tee-shirts, and a guy catches a pass ON HIS HELMET to spoil that?

Sometimes I think people 'ask for it', and not just in sports, but life in general. I guess like the Pats who thought and loudly proclaimed that they were going to be the 'perfect team', that what they experienced could be considered 'Karma'. The opposite of Karma is Irony.

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